Black Diamond III Multi-Sensory Bluetooth Speaker Review

The folks at Acase have partnered again with design company yantouch to create a lovely little bluetooth-connected reactionary lighting art object with the power to blast your audio out and high volume - the Black Diamond III. There have been two other Black Diamond speakers similar to this one, of course, as the name suggests, but this is the first working independent of any one line of smartphone units. Here you'll be connecting with bluetooth or a basic line-in with your smart device's headphone jack, and the fun will begun thusly.

I call this device an art object because though it's being marketed as a Multi-Sensory Bluetooth Speaker, it's able to rock and roll in silence as well. If you simply turn on the lights in this lovely object, you have the option to turn on everything from green to orange to purple and back again, rainbow blasting included, smooth transitions between the collection included as well. But the real magic happens when you connect your tunes to the beast.

You've got a couple of 3W*2 speakers on the sides and a bass port right up on top and the sound is decent. This isn't the sort of masterpiece you'll be bringing to the college dorm during a massive party expecting to rock the house. Instead it's the speaker with a fabulous set of lighting effects you're going to bring to the college dorm to use while you're hanging out over Christmas break because you want to freak out on how smooth the colors can be when they're allowed to flow.

The colors - again, the star of the show - make for one of the most entertaining set of aesthetics we've ever seen in a speaker. This device is essentially a sound-reactive light before it's a speaker - and it does react to the sound quite nicely. You can set the light (with the included controller) to sit on one color, cycle through a collection, play rainbow style colors, or bump to the beat of the audio. You can have the lights play along with the music you're working with while you're on rainbow color mode or you can cycle through the colors on the fly.

You'll be using the included remote to make all the lighting action a reality. If you lose the remote, you're going to be right on out of luck, because there's no other way to control this orb. The creators of this machine have kindly included a lovely little port in the back of the orb for storage of the controller, thankfully, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about loss. After that, it's jut a matter of deciding which device you want to connect to this miniature Epcot Center Spaceship Earth-like concoction.

Notice in the hands-on video above that we've got the Android-toting Google Nexus 4 by LG, the Nokia Lumia 920 with Windows Phone 8, and the Apple iPhone 5 with iOS - each of them are able to connect via Bluetooth to the Black Diamond III without a hassle. Just a couple of clicks and you're on your way.

Is this device worth the approximately $120 USD you'll be tossing down on it if you purchase it online right this minute? I think the real question is - did you get $120 USD in holiday gifts this holiday season? I think you know what to do.